Flaws in the PvP Battleground System: A veteran player's POV

I found myself having to PvP to gear up an alt who would serve as a "protector" to an alt I have programmed to level up. Having no connections to boost me through RBGS, my only choice was to run random battlegrounds. I have done quite a lot of random BGs as Alliance, and here are my stats:

I have never played any RBG, so the above stats are not skewed by any RBG results. I think it is pretty obvious that the Horde is overall much better than the Alliance, and perhaps this is because their racials are vastly superior to alliance racials for PvP.

The flaws of the System:

1. First of all, as an Alliance player, your best chance to farm conquest points is to do Alterac Valley and Isle of Conquest. Therefore, when you use the Random Battleground feature, you have got a good motive to sabotage the BG you are currently in so that it ends sooner, in order to get out of it without the debuff, so that you can Random-BG re-queue immediately and -hopefully- end up in AV or in IoQ.

2. When you have obtained full blue PvP gear though the honor system and your PvP gear is fully upgraded through it, then there is absolutely no reason to bother fighting when you join a random BG, except if it is obvious that the Alliance is going to win, which hardly ever happens. If you join a random BG, and you can see from the score that your team is going to lose, then you can just afk so that the BG will end sooner and you can instantly re-queue for another BG, which will hopefully be AV or IoQ.

Quite often, and especially in Eye of the Storm and Battle for Gilneas, there are only Alliance bots fighting against the Horde while human players are just afk'ing it out. I usually read "Science Daily" while afk'ing in Battlegrounds or ANANDTECH PC reviews or just newspaper.

I don't mind if they report me, because I no longer need honor.

3. You can only blacklist two battlegrounds. IMO, we should be given the ability to blacklist every single battleground except Alterac Valley and Isle of Conquest. That way, we will grind conquest points in a couple of days, and so bored and disinterested players such as me will be removed from the system. I don't enjoy grinding BGs, it's annoying, tedious and it feels like work. If you gave me the chance to grind my conquest cap by doing AV and IoQ in a couple of days, you'll have me out of the system and not afking out in BG's.

ISLE OF CONQUEST SPECIFIC FLAWS:

1. GRIEFING IN IoQ: The Glaives (siege artillery) used to throw down the gates to the enemy keep, are very weak, which makes them very vulnerable both to players as well as enemy artillery. Often, there are Alliance players who play just to grief their team, and so what they do is take control of the Glaive and drive it straight to the horde keep, just within the range of the Horde artillery, and get their glaive destroyed within seconds thus crippling their team.

Losing one or two glaives 99% of the time means that you lost the game. Currently, there is no way to punish players griefing their team in such a way and there is also no way to prevent this type of griefing behaviour.

2. FOUR CAR GARAGE & GLAIVE GRAVE IoQ ACHIEVEMENTS: These two achievements are the reason for many games lost. First, they give an incentive to people to actively try to control Glaives (even people who have no clue on how to use them) leading to mishandled Glaives and thus lost games, and even worse, they give an incentive to Glaive drivers to ACTIVELY try to kill enemy players WITH the glaive INSTEAD of just using the glaive to throw the Enemy Keep's gates down. So, what often happens is glaives hunting down enemy players and firing on them instead of firing on the Enemy Keep's gates, thus ensuring a lost game.

RBG SYSTEM FLAWS

I have been playing since, uh, Dec 2005. I don't remember when the RBG system was introduced, and what is worse, I have never done RBG although I have got the gear and experience.

The reason: NOBODY EXCEPT PEOPLE WHO CHARGE YOU REAL MONEY FOR A BOOST IS DOING RBGs.

On my server, the trade chat is spammed daily by people who charge you real money through PAYPAL to boost you through RBGs. These people are never caught, silenced or whatever, and reporting them achieves nothing. Apart from these people, nobody else ever advertises for an RBG group or a BG premade.

Now back in Vanilla, I had no friends, and I wasn't even in a guild when I started. But I was able through my participation in BG's to gear up fully (I got Rank 10) and because premades all started and finished either in SW Keep or IF war hall, you got to KNOW the people who ran premades because you saw them every day like 20-30 times. The people who ran premades also got to know you, and then you got a spot in a premade out of the blue.

This is simply not possible today, because nobody except botters/con artists/people who charge real money for boosts is doing Rated Battlegrounds.

I really fail to see the purpose of RBGs the way they are implemented today. The only thing RBGs did, was to make lots of money for the people who charge real money for RBG boosts and ofc make alot of money for PAYPAL.

(Regarding Arena: I have never done Arena nor I ever will. I hate the way the Arena is "balanced" and getting roflstomped by FOTM classes/specs without a chance to fight back is no fun).

Veteran vanilla player - I was 31 back in 2005 when I started playing WoW - Nostalrius raider with a top raid guild.

Played 2 rbg's and i queue alone almost all the time. I'm alliance btw, always have been. How would you explain that? I started playing late BC, maybe in vanilla/bc horde was superior but im afraid those days are long over.

Seriously, how can u form an opinion on for example 20 Gilneas battles? And then call yourself a veteran HAHA. If you don't like bgs, don't do them. You are utterly clueless and I'm glad you play Alliance.

Those are battlegrounds played in previous expansions. Because my toon didn't PvP at all during CATA (I was playing on a private server during that awful expansion), all the data posted above is from MoP.

Veteran vanilla player - I was 31 back in 2005 when I started playing WoW - Nostalrius raider with a top raid guild.

I like how you added the "veteran" part, like that gives your words more meaning and we should salute you on sight.

Originally Posted by Furkel

There's always, ALWAYS a "huge uproar" about anything Blizz does, usually from people who either don't entirely understand the thing they're complaining about, or refuse to acknowledge that most players are perfectly okay with the current state of affairs. Whenever people complain that they don't listen to feedback it mostly means "they don't listen to ME ME ME".

Seriously, how can u form an opinion on for example 20 Gilneas battles? And then call yourself a veteran HAHA. If you don't like bgs, don't do them. You are utterly clueless and I'm glad you play Alliance.

I have been playing since Dec 2005. In addition, I am Justicar (exalted with numerous battlegrounds) and "Of The Alliance" which means over 250k kills.

Veteran vanilla player - I was 31 back in 2005 when I started playing WoW - Nostalrius raider with a top raid guild.

I think it is pretty obvious that the Horde is overall much better than the Alliance, and perhaps this is because their racials are vastly superior to alliance racials for PvP.

This sentence shows exactly why you are clueless. Name at least one Horde racial that is better than Shadowmeld or Every man for himself for PVP. Guess what, you can't.
Horde has better PVE racials (that's why top guilds like Method faction changed to Horde), Alliance ones are more suited for PVP.

edit:
Just to back up my experience.
My former Alliance rogue has exalted with all BG factions. you can look stats here if you want. I haven't pvped on her after faction change (she was night elf before). In fact, you can see, she is still level 80.
Total BGs: 1044 - BGs won: 774 (that's 74,14% winrate)
As for my current main, stats are here.
Total BGs: 984 - BGs won: 608 (that's 61,79% winrate)
I hardly played any RBGs (around 60 or so on paladin), and 95% of time I queue solo. I think that it really depends on the class you are playing and how good you are with it. I was able to have much more impact on battle field as rogue than I did on my pala. Simply because of stealth.

I found myself having to PvP to gear up an alt who would serve as a "protector" to an alt I have programmed to level up. Having no connections to boost me through RBGS, my only choice was to run random battlegrounds. I have done quite a lot of random BGs as Alliance, and here are my stats:

I have never played any RBG, so the above stats are not skewed by any RBG results. I think it is pretty obvious that the Horde is overall much better than the Alliance, and perhaps this is because their racials are vastly superior to alliance racials for PvP.

The flaws of the System:

1. First of all, as an Alliance player, your best chance to farm conquest points is to do Alterac Valley and Isle of Conquest. Therefore, when you use the Random Battleground feature, you have got a good motive to sabotage the BG you are currently in so that it ends sooner, in order to get out of it without the debuff, so that you can Random-BG re-queue immediately and -hopefully- end up in AV or in IoQ.

2. When you have obtained full blue PvP gear though the honor system and your PvP gear is fully upgraded through it, then there is absolutely no reason to bother fighting when you join a random BG, except if it is obvious that the Alliance is going to win, which hardly ever happens. If you join a random BG, and you can see from the score that your team is going to lose, then you can just afk so that the BG will end sooner and you can instantly re-queue for another BG, which will hopefully be AV or IoQ.

Quite often, and especially in Eye of the Storm and Battle for Gilneas, there are only Alliance bots fighting against the Horde while human players are just afk'ing it out. I usually read "Science Daily" while afk'ing in Battlegrounds or ANANDTECH PC reviews or just newspaper.

I don't mind if they report me, because I no longer need honor.

3. You can only blacklist two battlegrounds. IMO, we should be given the ability to blacklist every single battleground except Alterac Valley and Isle of Conquest. That way, we will grind conquest points in a couple of days, and so bored and disinterested players such as me will be removed from the system. I don't enjoy grinding BGs, it's annoying, tedious and it feels like work. If you gave me the chance to grind my conquest cap by doing AV and IoQ in a couple of days, you'll have me out of the system and not afking out in BG's.

ISLE OF CONQUEST SPECIFIC FLAWS:

1. GRIEFING IN IoQ: The Glaives (siege artillery) used to throw down the gates to the enemy keep, are very weak, which makes them very vulnerable both to players as well as enemy artillery. Often, there are Alliance players who play just to grief their team, and so what they do is take control of the Glaive and drive it straight to the horde keep, just within the range of the Horde artillery, and get their glaive destroyed within seconds thus crippling their team.

Losing one or two glaives 99% of the time means that you lost the game. Currently, there is no way to punish players griefing their team in such a way and there is also no way to prevent this type of griefing behaviour.

2. FOUR CAR GARAGE & GLAIVE GRAVE IoQ ACHIEVEMENTS: These two achievements are the reason for many games lost. First, they give an incentive to people to actively try to control Glaives (even people who have no clue on how to use them) leading to mishandled Glaives and thus lost games, and even worse, they give an incentive to Glaive drivers to ACTIVELY try to kill enemy players WITH the glaive INSTEAD of just using the glaive to throw the Enemy Keep's gates down. So, what often happens is glaives hunting down enemy players and firing on them instead of firing on the Enemy Keep's gates, thus ensuring a lost game.

RBG SYSTEM FLAWS

I have been playing since, uh, Dec 2005. I don't remember when the RBG system was introduced, and what is worse, I have never done RBG although I have got the gear and experience.

The reason: NOBODY EXCEPT PEOPLE WHO CHARGE YOU REAL MONEY FOR A BOOST IS DOING RBGs.

On my server, the trade chat is spammed daily by people who charge you real money through PAYPAL to boost you through RBGs. These people are never caught, silenced or whatever, and reporting them achieves nothing. Apart from these people, nobody else ever advertises for an RBG group or a BG premade.

Now back in Vanilla, I had no friends, and I wasn't even in a guild when I started. But I was able through my participation in BG's to gear up fully (I got Rank 10) and because premades all started and finished either in SW Keep or IF war hall, you got to KNOW the people who ran premades because you saw them every day like 20-30 times. The people who ran premades also got to know you, and then you got a spot in a premade out of the blue.

This is simply not possible today, because nobody except botters/con artists/people who charge real money for boosts is doing Rated Battlegrounds.

I really fail to see the purpose of RBGs the way they are implemented today. The only thing RBGs did, was to make lots of money for the people who charge real money for RBG boosts and ofc make alot of money for PAYPAL.

(Regarding Arena: I have never done Arena nor I ever will. I hate the way the Arena is "balanced" and getting roflstomped by FOTM classes/specs without a chance to fight back is no fun).

i think its more your mindset and the overall mindset of alliance players that makes them lose over and over again. Having played both sides i find horde alot more relaxed and friendly and better when it comes to working as a team. When i play alliance its often alot of namecalling or people that gives up early in the game or people that thinks geting highest dmg by farming hordes and ignore objectives makes them the man.

This sentence shows exactly why you are clueless. Name at least one Horde racial that is better than Shadowmeld or Every man for himself for PVP. Guess what, you can't.
Horde has better PVE racials (that's why top guilds like Method faction changed to Horde), Alliance ones are more suited for PVP.

Sorry but you're pretty clueless.

Orc and Undead trump Human at the moment, and seriously, Shadowmeld? lol

He wasn't saying you were lying about veing a "veteran". He was pointing out that being one doesn't add more weight to your argument, and adding that only makes you look like a self-important douchebag. I'm not saying you are, just that it makes you look a bit like one by adding that, and your replies so far haven't dispelled that impression.

Originally Posted by Tya

As a warlock, allow me to be the first to say that I get tremendous amounts of joy from watching fear pathing take you to Africa.

Originally Posted by Drayarr

Twinking is like going back to school when you are 30, just to be smarter than the other kids.

However, I think it is both amusing and adorable that you think that actually MEANS something. Like how it should make us listen to you, or how you are better than others. The fact you even went trough the trouble of posting a screenshot of your payment history only makes things more sad. For all other comment, I refer to the post made by Adramalech, which perfectly sums it up.

Last edited by Gnowo; 2013-01-11 at 01:34 PM.

Originally Posted by Furkel

There's always, ALWAYS a "huge uproar" about anything Blizz does, usually from people who either don't entirely understand the thing they're complaining about, or refuse to acknowledge that most players are perfectly okay with the current state of affairs. Whenever people complain that they don't listen to feedback it mostly means "they don't listen to ME ME ME".

Seriously, how can u form an opinion on for example 20 Gilneas battles? And then call yourself a veteran HAHA. If you don't like bgs, don't do them. You are utterly clueless and I'm glad you play Alliance.

That's a completely dumb, flawed, and utterly ridiculous mentality.
Simply because someone hasn't played a lot doesn't mean they cannot spot flaws in something that a more experienced player can't. Sometimes, a fresh pair of eyes spots errors that someone who has been doing it for a long time cannot. Your basically saying something akin to "young people being unable to do something because an older person has done it for longer." Bit of a stretched analogy I know, but similar if you think about it.

OP is clearly a moron. I'm so sick of seeing people whine about faction wins/loses. People who do this lose because they are bad and can't make an impact on a BG, any decent player can shine in random BGs and carry a team but instead so many just blame the team and give up.
Isle of conquest isn't even a problem if you don't want people driving glaives then grab them yourself it's not that hard.
And the reason only RBG carriers probably advertise on your realm is because people who actively seek RBG groups look on hot spot realms like tich/illidan/darkspear etc on US. And people who actively RBG form groups and communities exactly the same as you describe from vanilla, that is what real-id and battletags are for.
Your arena statement is dumb because the same imbalances carry over to battlegrounds anyway.
And finally shadow meld is an amazing pvp racial which you can use to dodge CCs and use for restealths on stealth classes as well as for things like dropping combat for drinks/eating things like that. Use your brain(if you have one).

Oh and pointing out that you are a veteran is retarded and just shows you haven't learned and evolved with the game and no one cares what your opinion as a vanilla player is. (And yes I have played since just after launch)